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Using other email addresses with fetch

You can set up Fastmail to send and receive email from other accounts you have, so you can handle all of your mail in one place.

How to import and/or set up fetch

  1. Open the Settings → Migration screen.
  2. Go to the Import mail, calendars, and contacts section and select your other mail provider. If the mail provider is not listed, click Other (IMAP / CardDAV / CalDAV).
  3. Enter your email address and password for your other account, and follow any instructions you see on the screen.
    • For most accounts, this info is all we need. If needed, we may ask you to enter the server names. In that instance, you'll need to obtain the server information from your other email provider.
  4. On the next screen, you have the option to import your mail from this account. If you'd like to do this, please make sure to keep this ticked. If you do not want to import mail from your other account into your Fastmail mailbox, leave this unticked.
  5. Below the option to import mail, you have two options: Keep fetching mail from your other inbox, and Set up sending from your other address. Check both of these boxes, then click Do it.

Now you're able to send and receive mail from your other account!

You can view and edit accounts you've set up to fetch and/or send mail by going to the Settings → Migration screen. Accounts you've set up will be listed in the Connected services section.

Additional information on fetch

The Settings → Migration screen also allows you to choose to keep a copy of each message on the external account, or delete the message from the external account once we have fetched it. 

Mail is fetched every five minutes when logged in, and otherwise once an hour. If you’d like for us to instead fetch mail only when you refresh the Inbox, you can select that option on the Settings → Migration screen. Mail is only fetched from the Inbox. If you have rules set up on your external account that move your mail away from the Inbox, we won’t fetch it.

Note that mail is not synced as it would be with a client like Thunderbird. Fastmail fetches the message only. Read, unread, archive, and delete statuses do not carry over to Fastmail, or back to your external account.

By default, fetched mail is sorted into your Inbox folder. If you'd like fetched mail to go into a separate folder, you can set this up on the Settings → Migration screen by following these steps:

  1. Under Connected services, you'll see a section called Mail fetch. Click View and edit.
  2. On the next screen, click Edit next to the account you'd like to change the set up for.
  3. Under Fetch Mail, you'll see a Deliver to section. Click the dropdown menu and choose the  desired folder.

If you'd like to set up a signature, you can do this on the Settings → Signatures & Compose screen. Other settings for sending from your external addresses can be configured on the Settings → My email addresses screen.

Note: If your other address is at a domain you own, you may want to host your domain with Fastmail instead of fetching mail from your current email host.

Adding external addresses without importing

If you have an external email address that you'd like to use in Fastmail, but you don't want to import mail or set up fetch, you can connect your address by following these steps:

  1. Go to Settings → My email addresses and click Add address.
  2. Select the second option, Add an address you already own.
  3. Enter the email address you wish to use and click Next.
  4. If the email provider for this address supports OAuth2, you will be prompted to sign in to your external email account. If your external email provider does not support OAuth2, you will be brought to the next screen, where you can manually configure your account.
  5. A new screen will appear where you can set a name and signature for the email address, and edit other advanced settings. When you're ready, click Save.

If your external email provider does not support OAuth2, you may need to verify the address. The Authenticated delivery (SMTP settings) section on the My email addresses page provides the instructions on how to verify external addresses.

Troubleshooting adding a Gmail account

If you're having trouble adding a Gmail account, make sure that IMAP access is enabled.

If you're still having trouble, please login to your Gmail account, and go to Settings (the gear icon at the top right) then click the Labels tab. Make sure that Show in IMAP is checked for each of your folders. If the folder is not IMAP-enabled, we won't be able to download mail from the folder. Next, click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. Make sure IMAP is enabled, and in the folder size limits section, select Do not limit the number of messages in an IMAP folder.

Troubleshooting iCloud mail

If you're trying to fetch or send from your iCloud account, you'll need to get a new app-specific password from iCloud to use with Fastmail.

You can find the Apple Support instructions on how to generate an app-specific password on this page.

Issues while fetching mail

If you have fetch enabled and we cannot connect to the server, we'll send you an email to let you know. If 5 connection errors happen in a row, we'll automatically disable fetching mail. This usually happens because the password has been changed. You can update it on the Settings → Migration screen in the Connected services section.

Most of the time, issues with fetching mail can be resolved using the troubleshooting tips above. If you continue having issues, please contact our support team.

Information for Pobox users

If you are a former Pobox user, you may be used to checking your mail through the email provider that hosted your forwarding address (e.g., if your Pobox alias forwarded mail to yourname@gmail.com, you may be used to checking your email in Gmail's web interface). 

If you wish to use Fastmail's interface, but you want to continue seeing mail from your external address, a good option would be setting up a fetch for your external address.

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